


reply:

by nanye_i_arato_angaina



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, being friends with multiple people is hard, probably an overuse of italics, speculation of potentials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 03:24:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7297540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanye_i_arato_angaina/pseuds/nanye_i_arato_angaina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper has remarkable insights into this, as in all things. Tony puts himself in Steve's shoes, and sends a bunch of texts from a flip phone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	reply:

"What if it were Rhodey?"

  
Pepper's words were soft, but as soon as he heard them, the equations running through his head ground to a sudden and complete stop, in favor of the horrifying alternative she proposed.

  
_Rhodey, searching ceaselessly, falling, presumed dead. Himself, stumbling through the desert, barely alive. He happens upon people eventually, kind people, or else he doesn't make it out of the desert. Nursed back to health, he helps them stop an invasion of their home by the same terrorists using his weapons. It gets his story out, and he gets back, to Pepper and Obie and a home that no longer feels familiar. He still rebuilds the suit, and Stane still betrays him, and he still reveals himself to the world as Iron Man._

  
_And then the palladium poisoning, and signing the company over to Pepper, and SHIELD. No War Machine, just a highly irritated Pepper and a very sad, lonely man trying to pretend he's alright on his birthday. And then Vanko, and the Expo, and Hammer. More destruction, more death, but eventually he's stopped. There's no kissing on a rooftop, but no false quitting either, just a determined return to work for both of them._

  
_And then New York, and the aliens, and a team that just maybe might be able to work together to accomplish something bigger than themselves. Found: a tentative new friend, an agent he mostly trusts to only make fun of him a little, and something to do to keep a mind occupied._

  
_And then - new helicarriers, assassins after Fury, SHIELD is hunting him, and that face, those eyes behind the gun pointed at him.  And -_

  
That he didn't collapse onto the floor was thanks only to the proximity of the stool behind him. Pepper's voice from the speakers was calling to him, increasingly anxiously. Friday was attempting to reassure her, but Friday was not JARVIS and was not aware of the Broken Crayon Protocol. He tried to regulate his breathing, to remind himself that Rhodey was still close by, still alive, and still one hundred percent his friend who laughed at him and called him names.

  
He talked to Pepper long enough that she would no longer be actively worried about him, and decided that he'd been in the lab long enough. He rattled through the kitchen, trying to decide if food was a thing to be desired or if he just wanted to try and not think anymore and pass out. Definitely not coffee. He stared at the inside of the fridge (thinking vaguely of somebody telling him he was going to let all the cold air out, but, you know, billionaire), eventually realizing that the filter in the water pitcher needed changing. He rummaged through drawers for the replacement. He found a box of them, eventually, but not until after he'd found again the drawer that never got used, and so held only a letter and a flip phone. He avoided it, putting far more effort into the replacing than was required. But it kept catching his attention, and what if it were Rhodey kept running through his head. He closed his eyes as he grabbed the phone, as if that would make things easier.

  
_This is not an emergency. But even a Pepper who needs a_

  
_break from me is a Pepper who knows what I need to hear. This_

  
_is not an apology, either, but it's not not an apology. This is_

  
_me saying that I've actually thought about things without_

  
_them being so immediate. This is me saying that I thought about_

  
_it from your perspective and I didn't make it past my best_

  
_friend trying to kill me. I may try to be a bigger person_

  
_and think about the rest at some point, but that's unlikely_

  
_anytime soon. I think I've learned too much from you and_

  
_now there's too much stubborn for one team. I don't want this_

  
_to turn into the Cold War (you learned about that, right? I'm not just_

  
_making fun of you), if for no reason than to prove that_

  
_bastard Zemo wrong. We might have been divided but I'll keep_

  
_Ross on hold whenever you need me to. Keep your distance,_

  
_but don't be a stranger. And tell Bruce hi for me if you see him. -T_

  
He shut the phone off, and shoved it and the letter back in the drawer.

  
"Friday, remind me in like a week to check on that."

  
"Yes, boss,"

  
Agent Romanoff deserved an apology, though, and Wilson probably even more so, but he could only handle so much emotional upheaval in any given period of time. And the kid, and Barton. Maybe a flying tractor would pacify his kids, or a Rube Goldberg wood chopping machine like that one cartoon.

  
Back to the lab, then.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I finally posted a thing for the fandom in which my username is based!


End file.
